It may just be me...but...
The cylon raider made me think of Gigers Alien, the cockpit shape is the head and the curves of the wing..

Cool, but I had a soft-spot for the original raider 'saucer' shape.

Projectkmo

11 November 2003, 02:19 PM

I had hoped that they would'nt mess with the Galactica itself.... oh well.... at least the Vipers in the commercials still look original. Why they would keep the old Boxy Shuttle...but change the Cylon Raider and the Galactica.....again...oh well. I'll still watch it...but i'll miss the Old Galactica. :hmm:

eliseu gouveia

11 November 2003, 02:33 PM

Okay, I´ve finally took the time to dissect why the new Galactica´s design sucks.

If you boil it down to the basic essentials, the Old Galactica was basically a bucket of bolts, pannels, screws and a multitude of tiny details that made it look like a seriously decayed yet sturdy giant metal coffin probably made out of cannibalised parts from other ships.
But if you took the time to see beyond the rusty appearance that made it look like this ship was OLD (and I don´t mean grandfather-old, I mean Mathusalem-old!), you started noticing that there was a pattern to this metal chaos; you could see the command center at the bow, the landing bays, the engines... there was a certain obscure logic to how the elements were disposed.

The new Galactica is a vacuum cleaner.
It looks erodynamic and functional as a house appliance, one of those Moulinex thingies you (should) have in the kitchen.
Now I don´t wanna start a discussion about the virtues of aerodynamics in deep space, but I´ll grant it that its lines give it a futuristic, bold dashing feel.
Yes, this seems straight out of Star Trek, Babylon 5 or any such shows... which is exactly what Battlestar Galactica isn´t about.

Battlestar Galactica takes place in an undefined time period; is it the future? Is it the past? Are Adama and his people our descendants who left to populate the stars years from now or the descendants of Kobol who, looking the help of a sister tribe, end up colonising earth and giving birth to our civilization?
No one knows and it´s that untimely aspect, conveyed by the tunics, the robes, the mythological names that give the series its particular charm.

Galactica itself is untimelly, an ark of metal so old that its decay has began to show.
It looks ancient, though it´s supposed to have 300 years old (Man! Those people sure knew how to build their ships! Your average Enterprise nowadays lasts 20 years and it´s off to the scrapeyard for her)

Now enter this new upstart.
Sure it looks futuristic, but is it what we wanted it to look like?
If anything, the term "ragtag fleet" should have given the designers (or the Powers That Be behind them, whichever greenlighted this) a hint of what NOT to make this giant sarcophagus into.

That´s the problem of the Sci-Fi channel; they´re so busy trying to be scientific and futuristic and bold and dashing that they miss the very soul of this show.

And to end this tiresome post, here´s the main details that strike me: the parallel lines that run across the whole of the ship, perpendicular to its natural flow.
Why are they there and who put them there in the first place?
Are they supposed to enhance its rough feel so it doesn´t look like the latest starfleet prototype?
They´re completelly wrong!
They break the dynamics of the set and completelly destroy the balance of the ship; and they attract way too much attention to themselves!

On a final note (just to be a Sci-Fi geek, since this is after all for the Sci-Fi channel) and because the class obviously wasn´t paying any attention, this is a giant ship: a Battlestar! (Double exclamation point).
This is not a F-111, a F-14 or Janeway´s Voyager, okay?
It houses (in the original show) 65 vipers and god knows how many more shuttle crafts.

A monster of this magnitute does not and should not (as in n-o-t ever!) have a variable geometry.
It shouldn´t have to endure the strain of milions of tons of metal sliding outwards in its midsection to extend its launch bays everytime a cylon squadrom shows onscreen ( even if that is mentioned in the book).
It doesn´t work.
Just no.

On a last note, RTL started airing a rerun of this show on sundays (I won´t mention the joy of watching this dubbed in german if you won´t: okay, except to say that I know what "kolonial kriegger" means, and that´s as far as my ability to understand what´s going on goes).
Comparing the old vipers to the newer ones, I can´t help but mentioning how so much cooler they looked, from the stabilisers to the nose tip, from the way the guns are located to the balanced look of the tripplet set of engines.

You think some of these days, anyone in this show will actually stop and reconsider that old saying?
You know which, that one even 5 years old kids know?

Originally posted by NanoGator
Oh neato! Deep Space Nine has a cameo (http://www.galactica2003.net/Images/intersun05.jpg)!

Oh poo. They don't liike remote linking. :rolleyes:

NanoGator

11 November 2003, 09:43 PM

hmm mixed bag. They've got talented CG and design people, but I have to admit the changes they're making are worrysome. Every time they make a change, the fans of the original series take a jolt. Too many jolts, and they're not enjoying it. I hope they're taking a big risk as opposed to trying to fix what they thought was broken.

eliseu gouveia

11 November 2003, 02:00 AM

To me, it seems they´re changing things for the sake of changing things, too busy with the "how do we" with out considering the "should we".

If the entire tone, spirit and appeal of the series is lost, what is there to watch?

Come December the 8th, there´s gonna be hell toupée.

malducin

11 November 2003, 02:42 AM

Well it's never encouraging when the biggest star on the show (Olmos) kinda dissed the new version several months ago (though some claimed it was propaganda to hype it, while others that it wasn't a diss but a warning to old fans).

eliseu gouveia

11 November 2003, 03:39 AM

Yeah, that´s worrying news, but remember, even Lorne Greene once voiced how going from Bonanza to Galactica was considered a downgrade for him.

Guess it´s some sort of a tradition for the actors who play Adama to be desatisfied with the part.

We can´t ALL be Apolo.:cool:

tredeger

11 November 2003, 06:44 AM

The old galactica looked like a giant metal komodo dragon in space. That was cool. Now its an industrial steely dan (lets see how many people understand that reference). Sad sad sad. I was never the biggest fan of the plots or the acting. For me it was all about those cute girls with the Farah hair in space + the very cool ship designs.

Re: the ships in the original:
The rag tag fleet was rag tag! The vipers and the galactica just worked sooooo well they were a tribute to the virtues of miniatures. And the cylon command ships were gorgeous designs--simple elegent forms but with the industrial patina of nuts and bolts space travel.

How good were the designs in the old series? Well, they were so good everyone pretty much forgives the fact that they only have about 6 different battle shots plus 4 explosion shots that they would piece together and recycle in various combinations to create every single battle. Approximately 150 seconds of footage got them through the entire series. heheh. It's hilarious when they air the marathons. After the first episode, you've seen every space battle shot b/t cylon and viper there is.

But of course, the really important question is will they have a scene in which Starbuck plays "poker" with hexagonal cards and the money that looks like Rolos caramels? That's what the fans really want.

back to work

NanoGator

11 November 2003, 12:11 PM

Originally posted by tredeger
How good were the designs in the old series? Well, they were so good everyone pretty much forgives the fact that they only have about 6 different battle shots plus 4 explosion shots that they would piece together and recycle in various combinations to create every single battle. Approximately 150 seconds of footage got them through the entire series. heheh. It's hilarious when they air the marathons. After the first episode, you've seen every space battle shot b/t cylon and viper there is.

I don't think it's so hilarious, heh. Despite reusing footage, they made up for it by using it in interesting ways. I was just a kid when I watched that show, but a few things stood out in my mind. I remember one ep where they were searching for somebody/someplace and they tripled their search radius by homing in on each fighter, as opposed to the Galactica. That was kinda cool, even conveyed the idea in such a way that I knew it was tricky and dangerous. One screwup by a pilot could mean all 3 are lost. Another that stands out in my mind is when .. oh.. I think it was Starbuck and another dude were in a stolen Cyclon fighter and they were heading for Galactica. The way they told Galactica (radio dint work) that they were friendly was they made the ship 'waddle'.

We're not talking about stuff that was difficult to convey here. In the first example, they just reused shots of the fighters flying around, and cut to a graphic on their little sensor things that showed proximity. Cheap to do. In the second example they just needed a shot of the Cylon ship 'waddling'.

In this day of "throw just about anything you want on the screen and make sure its pretty", I'm worried that the focus of making the story work disappears. Now I cannot pass judgement on Galactica, it hasn't even aired yet. But it's a growing concern I've been having over the years. What would have happened to Episode II if they had challenges to overcome?

Ramble ramble. Sozz. :)

Bliz

11 November 2003, 02:11 PM

I loved the original series. It's what you watched to get your space opera fix between starwars films.

I don't mind the look of the new Colonial ships too much except I don't know why they've got [currently two] different revisions of the viper but haven't included the original one in the new show? If they had done that it would have been a nice gesture to the old show and provided an emotional link.
I'm also a bit worried that the non CG ship sets look exactly like sets, you can almost see the wooden fibre board through the silver paint :rolleyes:

eliseu gouveia - As for the BattleStar, the original Battlestar wasn't "made out of cannibalised parts from other ships" It was a series of 12 carrier ships specifically made for military purposes. A parallel would be modern day US aircraft carriers. They may be specc'ed out differently but the basic form and layout of the ships is the same. All the detail you see on the old Battlestar Galactica is from it's original spec. as you can see in the episode where they meet the BattleStar Atlanta (was that the name?), the two Battlestars looked exactly the same (ok, they obviously used the same model for both but you see what I mean)

As for the Cylon ships - what the hell sort of drugs were they on??!! That new cylon raider looks weedy, non-menacing and worse is highly derivative of spaceships from other shows (Klingon, bird of prey anyone?, Droid fighter from Phantom Menace?). The cyclon mothership also looks not as nice as the original. It lacks bulk, you can't imagine it holding all those cylon raiders and / or invasion platoons of cylon centaurions, there's just not enough room...

...still, the new centaurion looks pretty good.

I'll still watch it if the European arm of the Sci-fi channel stop showing Small Soldiers and actually decide to air something new....

eliseu gouveia

11 November 2003, 03:07 PM

I regret the "cannibalised parts".

It´s a feeling, a first impression I got from the first time I saw its rough appearance (I was what, 11?), as if the ship had endured such a long history of battles that most of its original parts were replaced due to battle damage.

This is conveyed by the fact that the original ship, on its bare essential and despite its actually ellegant figure with a very slim profile was a large amount of protuberances, details and rough metallic edges that populate its hull.

Originally, the idea was to have each battlestar have its own appearance (Atlantia, for instances, was supposed to be this ugly sucession of modules that contrasted with Galactica´s balanced well-thought out look).
I guess budget constraints might have forced them to just replicate the same design for all the other battle ships.

If I recall correctly, Atlantia was the flag ship, the fleet´s main war vessel. Galactica was its second and there were other ships, namely the Pacifica, the Solaria (that gets cut in half before exploding in the pilot episode) and the Pegasus that´ll appear on another episode).

God, they had so much to work from....

IvanMilles

11 November 2003, 09:29 AM

Oh god, I feel so young! Here I was thinking I was growing up, and I suddenly feel like I'm wearing diapers again. Battlestar Galactica? Whut? Something seriously before my time, I suppose. :)

ower

11 November 2003, 11:18 AM

Originally posted by eliseu gouveia
The cylon raiders look cooler than the old ones.

I haven't seen much regarding the new show, but I know the trailer for the game.. which I believe is suppose to tie in with the show they've used the old style Cyclon ships. Maybe this particular looking ship is a strike craft or something? Maybe they are using a couple designs.. sorta like star wars has TIE fighters, TIE interceptors, TIE Bombers, and so on.

DigiLusionist

11 November 2003, 06:59 PM

My biggest gripe is the treatment of Richard Hatch. He campaigned for the revival of this property. Like the designs for the ships and for the characters, he was cast aside with little regard so changes could be made wily nily.

A female Starbuck? An android Cyclon that seduces the bad guy? Klingon Bird of Prey-like Cylon fighters? Come on. Why screw with things just to feel like you're "updating" things?

The original ideas are what made the show interesting. Hollywierdos always have to show how brilliant they think they are by making unneccessary changes.

And when the changes made are worse than the original execution of those ideas, I smell the influence of entrenched production companies, practical effects companies, and stunt men unions on the producers' backs.

eliseu gouveia

11 November 2003, 09:02 PM

Yeah, the first time I heard there was a conflict with Richard Hatch, I imediatly sensed there was going to be problems.

With him on board, after his long campaign the revive Galactica, at least there was some sort of a guarantee or at least a promise that they´d stay true to the spirit of the show.

This ... transvesti they´re turning out? From this viewpoint right now, it has less than nothing to do with the series, aside from a few familiar names thrown in.

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